


i land on an island coast, where the only souls i see are ghosts

by gootarts



Category: Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry
Genre: Lucid Dreaming, Other, no pronouns for sayo (after the first~1k words) only chaos, set between games 5 and 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts
Summary: The former territory lord's power passing to Battler was not a simple handing over of the proverbial torch. No, fragments lingered, and there was no time that it was more obvious than during sleep, a time at which humans were both living and dead.





	i land on an island coast, where the only souls i see are ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I jot down an idea and end up fleshing it out at a later date. The prompt for this one was: "battler. battler just because you’re seeing me in your dreams doesn’t mean i’m not dead so please stop hugging me" 
> 
> The title is from the song Lonesome Dreams by Lord Huron.

It’s….it’s what, the fifth game? Sixth? No, no, neither; it was a twilight time in-between. The next chapter of their story had yet to be written. But, at the same time, it had almost felt like the final page of a book, a bittersweet ending, the ink on the page stained with tears.

He’d seen Beatrice turn to ash, nothing more than cosmic dust in the universe now. No more would her awful, beautiful laughing face grace his vision, not without some great act of magic. Perhaps that was for the best, perhaps it wasn’t. The woman he’d…..he’d fallen in love with, god it hurt to admit that, but it was true…..she was dead. Or supposed to be dead. Faded, to butterflies.

But even then, his mind was still taunting him about it. 

Sleep was hard, nowadays. For the immortal being that he had become, it wasn’t  _ necessary,  _ but it still felt nice. It was like taking a break from everything for a moment, even if it was fraught with weird dreams. The first couple nights, it was the standard, understandable weird dreams; attempting to run from a murderous monkey with a suitcase full of screaming chimpanzees after landing a sea voyage where the monkey tried to sink the ship. That sort of thing. But this one….it was different. It was less like stepping into a strange, distorted world where all the rules of logic and then some were simply thrown out the window. 

Instead of simply being a bewilder passenger, he was conscious, in his own body; it was something he’d never actually felt, but knew enough to put words to it.  _ A lucid dream _ . Perhaps that was a given, considering the sky over the Rokkenjima rose garden, a such a strange combination of colors that he almost wanted to run his hands through the golden clouds, wrapping them around his fingers like cotton candy in front of the lavender sky. Or his body, its full stature cut and mashed into that of a child, his regalia pulled off his shoulders and replaced with clothes befitting a child. He vaguely remembered the outfit—something Rudolf had insisted on getting rid of once he’d hit his growth spurt, because the thing was starting to come apart at the seams. He really liked the outfit, too; a shirt, with a green vest overtop. 

But, why was he here, in this scenario? The gazebo was empty, and the doors to the mansion were locked; the Torian guesthouse was no longer there, so that was cut off, too. It was a solitary, lonely universe, with no tiny bugs on the flowers, nor were there the ever-present seagulls. The sun never moved from its place in the sky, the dawn just below the horizon line.

Wandering the island, at least, was nice. The weather was just warm enough to be pleasant without making him overheat. But the longer he walked, the more he realized he was alone. Nobody was at the dock or hiding around the mansion. The woods seemed to perpetually spit him back out where he started when he wandered into them. No matter how long he walked, or how hard he pinched himself, he wouldn’t wake up. The universe didn’t seem to care about this boy, pouting with crossed arms under the gazebo.

The island was big! Even bigger, now that he was this size! Was he supposed to find something, like in a video game? Talk to somebody?

Did anything on the island seem out of place? Aside from the status of the place, no. Maybe he was supposed to open the mansion? When he’d tried throwing a rock at the window, it didn’t even dent. A bigger one didn’t work either. So the mansion was probably off limits without a key. The storage shed, Torian, and Kuwadorian were out of the running, too; they either weren’t there or were locked. 

Come to think of it, he hadn’t checked the chapel yet, on top of that long, winding dirt path. There was a bit of a hill to get there, but that was fine. He had all the time in the world. Maybe the path was a bit longer than he remembered, or his legs were just shorter than normal, but the church seemed to grow closer slower than usual. Its aura was different than he remembered it. The servants normally kept the place perpetually shiny, but this time there was a feeling of age, that no matter how long one lives, this building, this  _ thing _ , would stand past it. A dusting of dirt covered the normally glamorous inscription at the top; the single thing changed from the island, besides the sky. Instead of that English saying,  _ This Door Will Only Open At Odds Of A Quadrillion To One,  _ the saying was  _ Then he moved on, and I behind him followed. _

Bingo _. _

Unlike every other door on the island, the ones leading to the chapel were unlocked. The doors were heavy oak; perhaps that was by design, to keep those without the determination to open them locked out (or, perhaps more likely, were sized for adults). As they creaked open, he saw the chapel’s inside for the first time, not desecrated by the smell of dead flesh or blood. No; the place was almost as void of life as the rest of the island.  _ Almost _ .

There was a single figure, sitting perfectly still on the altar, hands folding on her lap as she stared straight down the blood-red aisle.

“Shannon...?” She was exactly as he’d remembered her when he was twelve, aside from the eyes. No, the eyes were hard, not the kind, curious ones he remembered. 

“Are you…?” The ceiling of the church was a beautiful, vaulted thing, one that reflected both his voice and the echoes of his steps as he nervously walked down the aisle. 

She still didn’t speak, not even as his throat closed in around his neck, breath coming in tattered breaths. She just waited there. 

He remembered that face, that face that he had only seen once before.

_ Ushiromiya Battler has a sin. _

“Hey… I remembered. I remembered! Wasn’t that what you wanted me to do?”

_ Ushiromiya Battler has a sin. Because of that, sin, people die. _

“Why…why are you still looking at me like that?!?” 

_ Ushiromiya Battler has a sin. Because of that, sin, people die. Nobody escapes. _

He was at the foot of the altar then, looking up at her. He reached out to touch her-nothing unwanted, just a tap on the hand, just to make sure she was still  _ there, alive _ , but--

As their hands touched, he woke up. 

* * *

It happened a second time a couple days later. This time, the island was the same, but he is yet again changed; this time not to a child’s uniform and shape, but to a strange, warped version of Beatrice’s dress. It was a suit, yes, but the important bits were kept; the splash of red on the chest, the golden embroidery. Otherwise, he was the same as he is dropped at the edge of the docks, the smell of salt fresh in his nostrils as the noon sun hung overhead. 

There was still that long, winding road up to the rose garden, so he was grateful that he no longer had the stride of a kid. As before, there was no life to animate the island. There was a wind blowing the branches above his head, but nothing  _ alive _ . At least, not before he stepped into the rose garden. 

The wisps of wind blew the golden petals from side to side as  _ she _ sat in the gazebo. Or, well, hm; perhaps  _ she _ was the wrong word to use. Shannon’s brown hair was still there, but instead of the woman’s uniform, Sayo was wearing the men’s version. Maybe it was just something to ask if it gets brought up, because he wasn't really sure what exactly Sayo wants to be called like this, or if gender was still a touchy subject. Sayo once again watched him, a pair of teacups and a pitcher situated on the table, and watched as he sat down before standing and moving the spare cup in front of him. 

“A-are you real?” He laid his hand on the table, palm up.

The hand brushed his. It’s icy cold. 

He wrapped his fingers around Sayo’s then, standing up in a rush (god, he was so much taller now that he was so close), and then, tightly, pulling his arms around. 

“Battler!” The words were sharp, its edges not dulled even though they were spoken with Shannon’s voice, were simultaneous with the  _ clack _ of the kettle being placed on the table.

“I’m sorry! I missed you!” He had to squat a little to burrow his head in Sayo's cold, bony shoulder. “Why did you disappear like that?”

There was a loud, very enunciated sigh that very clearly said  _ Battler, please stop hugging me so tightly.  _ So he loosened his grip. 

“Battler.” The words were almost soft this time, but the tone was still just a little off from Shannon. 

“I know now,” he whispered, babbling meaningless drivel into Sayo’s collarbone, “I know. So why…?”

“You know why.” There was a certain emotion to them, and he knew what lay beneath it; emotions so complex and twisting that they could not be expressed in words alone; gossamer strands of thought that only made sense when viewed both individually and as a whole.

How could he not? He was territory lord, absolute master of the realm, able to twist and turning death around like a child’s puzzle. But unable to revive those who passed like the former lord, the one standing in front of him, did. 

“I guess I do, huh.” Sayo could not see it, but his eyes were closed. “But why would you be here?”

“If you’re still truly asking that,” another sigh, a hand moving up a little to gently rub at his back, “you still haven’t learned from the games.”

He paused for a second. “Sayo.”

“Yes?”

“For  _ once _ , can you not be cryptic?” It was his turn to sigh now. “I know what you were trying to say with the games now. So, just this once. Please. Just be straightforward.”

The other, former lord, paused for a moment. He still couldn’t see the expression, but he could hear the voice; a long, whooping cackle that wrapped in around itself, even after he unwrapped his arms to give Sayo room to breathe. 

Which, nope, didn’t do anything to stop it. laugh still happening. 

“A-are you okay?” The words crashed weirdly around his awkward smile as the laughter went on longer and longer. Okay, yeah, he’d definitely broken Beatrice a couple times like that during the games, and, okay, he did definitely deserve the laughter that followed after (okay, so  _ maybe _ simultaneous clockwise murders was a ridiculous idea), but seeing this person with Shannon’s face and Kanon’s body laugh so hard that the table had to be used as a brace was definitely…off-putting. Neither Shannon nor Kanon were the type to laugh so wholeheartedly, with the entire motion of the body heaving as the sound came out. 

A pause, to remain composure and to wipe the tears that had sprung up (was his question  _ really _ that amusing?). Along with it, the face changed; from a strange, foreign sort of sternness to a Beato-ish curved smile, one that emphasized a fang-shaped snaggletooth that stuck out just barely, an elbow resting on the table. “I’d forgotten how hilarious you could be,” Sayo replied, still barely hiding a snicker. 

“H-hey!”

“Do you disagree?” The voice had that hint of nostalgic, teasing Beato-ness to it as Battler poured his own cup of tea. 

“I guess? But why are you here?” The tea was just the right temperature; not too hot, not too cold. He’d stared at for a moment, watching his reflection take shape in the ripples, before giving another, sad glance across the table. “Does…this mean I can bring you back?”

The look came back. The somber one, somber and lonely and  _ longing _ , all wrapped and tied up into one single package, one single face. “What do you think?”

“Dammit, I thought you said you’d wouldn’t give me riddles! I…I want you back! I want to talk to you, and touch you, and.! And!”  _ I want to tell you that it’ll all be fine. That was what you wanted, right? For somebody to care. For somebody to see past the veneer of magic and made-up fairy-tale, to dig up the broken, bloody shards of a glass slipper underneath the happy facade, to run their fingers over the sharp edges and still care enough to try and glue it back together.  _

_ To see all of that, and to tell you that. I want you to be happy.  _

As Sayo watched his face, lips curled around clenched teeth, he saw something in it change, even as the expression stayed the same. Some sort of minute shift in the aura, in posture, that shattered the exterior and cracked Sayo’s voice. 

“…I…….can’t.” There was something choked about those words, like they were being forced out by the long, clenched breath that followed. “You know the rules of the games, Battler.”

“I do, but what does this have to do with anything?”

A glance to the side, away from his eyes. “I don’t ‘exist’.”

“Oh.”  _ Like Shannon and Kanon _ . “Then you’re not…” Despite his lips never moving to finish the sentence, a nod of acknowledgement followed them regardless. 

“This version of me is nothing more than a mere fantasy.” He could see the chest rise in fall in a great, grand action before Sayo reclined into a posture that more accurately fit the stance of the former lord of Rokkenjima, with a cadence to match. “I am but an illusion, dust in the wind! And you, Ushiromiya Battler, you are the poor soul still seduced by my feminine wiles, unable to face reality!”

“H-hey!”

A wave of the arm -was that pipe there before?- as Sayo’s hand slowly rested on a cheek, supporting it from the table. “What will you do, Battleeeeer? Will you accept this? Or will you continue to live in your own pitiful, lonely world, shouting my name to the heavens until your bones turn to ash?”

“I don’t want to! I want you back! Don’t you want to come back?”

“At this point, whether I want to come back or not is irrelevant.”

“But don’t you want to?” He tilted his head to the side, just a little, as he put his hand, palm up, halfway across the table. “I  _ know _ you now. This, this whole massacre… it wasn’t what you really wanted. You just wanted  _ someone _ , didn’t you? I can…”

“Even with all the knowledge of this island’s secrets, you’re still incompetent, Battler Ushiromiya.” A pitying look.

“I just want you back! What’s so wrong about that? I want to give you what you wanted! I want to make you happy! Why are you acting like this?”

Sayo’s face…flashed, would be the best way to describe it. Two emotions, trying to decide between a tender lie and the harsh truth, playing out in a battle that barely lasted a second before speaking.

“I am  _ dead _ , Battler. You inherited my magic as I passed; this scene in front of you is the last dying fragment of that.” For the first time since he approached, Sayo raised the teacup to take a slow, long sip. 

“ _ Oh _ .” His grasp of magical metaphysics was still loose at best, but it was enough to know that revival just from that was impossible. 

Sayo wasn’t meeting his eyes again.

“But if there was some way to bring you back, would you want that?”

“I put all my hopes on the demon’s roulette, knowing that I would accept any outcome. Though,” a sigh, again, “I was hoping I would get an outcome like this. Where you understood.”

“So you already got what you wanted.” 

“I’ve resigned myself to this fate.”

“But I still want you back!”

“Do you really want to see her again that badly?”

“I don’t want to see her again! I want to see you!”

“If you wage everything on the demon’s roulette, you won’t get happiness.”

“That’s fine! I don’t care what happens to me!”

“ _ Do you really _ ?” The words were hissed out. “Do you really have that resolve? To undo everything you have gained?”

The words bit into his flesh, but didn’t break the skin; they came not from a place of anger, but of caution. A painful place, where any shred of happiness was tinged with the noose, tightening itself around and around your neck. While he couldn’t feel Sayo’s pain on his skin, or in his heart, but he knew what it felt like, what it would feel like. Anything to bring Beatrice back, even if it meant climbing into the maw of hell itself, would only be a fraction of that pain. 

“Yeah. I…I know what it felt like for you. I’m willing to go through that.” 

He felt himself wilting a little as Sayo stared him down from across the table, with the sort of gaze that felt as intense as one of Tokyo’s heat waves. 

“There’s a piece version of Beatrice that I created, back before the first game.” A glance to the side. “You’d find that eventually, but don’t drive yourself to ruin over this.”

“I…I won’t. I promise.”

“Your promises don’t have the best track record-”  _ Urk _ . “-but, just this once, I’ll trust you, Battler Ushiromiya.”

The words were pronounced in that elegant, strange way that Beatrice loved to say, as Sayo slowly stood up to place a hand overtop his, eyes meeting just briefly as he mirrored the movement. 

He slowly pulled Sayo into his arms again, but slower this time, one hand gripping the back, one gentle against the nape of the neck. A couple seconds later, he felt hands around his back, pulling him close, swaying just a little as his fingers combed through soft brown hair, until, softly, his lips found Sayo’s forehead. 

This time, waking didn’t come violently. It was soft, gradual; like the waves lapping at the shore. 

* * *

The final dream came faded, like the edges of an old photograph, like a vinyl record that was worn down, skipping as it reached a certain part of the song. The sky, instead of bright, was a dull monochrome, as was the rest of the world, the fading sun still heavy in the sky and moving lazily down to the horizon.

He was wearing his full regalia, the mantle seeming to weigh far heavier than it should, trailing behind his ankles like a bridal train. Like Erika’s, just a couple hours earlier, before him and Beato…before they…

He didn't want to think about that.

The dream had deposited him on the shore, right on the edges, where the waves would normally lap at his feet. The ocean was still, like a moment frozen in time. There was no sound, no shadows cast at his feet. No color in the world, save for a blurry splotch of red-black-gold on the dock that his feet instinctively shuffled towards. 

It was Sayo, unsurprisingly, but there was something obscuring the face, where every time he would try to make eye contact, he would always instinctively look away. Like the human version of television static, nagging in the back of his head every time he tried to make direct eye contact.

The power of this was fading, that much was clear. If he concentrated, he could begin to feel what the real him was feeling; the sensation of a blanket atop him, the sensation of Beato curled up next to him. But he pushed that aside; it could wait. It could wait. This person, sitting calmly at the intersection of the living and the dead, this person felt like one of those butterflies with tattered wings idly fanning on the sidewalk, waiting for the inevitable to happen. 

“Hey.”

There was a movement, one he couldn’t quite track with his eyes so much so as his heart. A subtle scooch to the side, giving just enough space to sit down. “You’re back.” He couldn’t see it, but he could feel the smile.

“Yeah.”

“I liked the game board you wrote.”

“…Even if Erika ruined it?”

A laugh, not quite a chuckle, not quite a cackle. “Even if Erika ruined it. Even now, it seems I still can’t trust your promises.” 

“…Sorry.”

“You are a fool, Battler.” Sayo spoke with a kind of nostalgic fondness. 

“Yeah. I know. Only a fool would fall in love with a cruel witch like you.” As he reached to thump where Sayo’s shoulder should be, his hands only met static. He could feel resistance, but it was not human flesh that pushed his hand away.

“You’re right!” Another movement he can barely see, the exaggerated theatrical spreading of two arms, the rightmost one just barely grazing his cheek. “I am the cruelest witch! Even after seeing through all my spells and charms, some mortals are still foolish enough to fall for me!”

It felt like he was being called out, here.

“L-look, I don’t make good decisions, okay!? You know how I told you my ideal woman when we were kids, right? It…might’ve been based on one of the really hot women in my old bastard’s porn collection.”

It took a moment for Battler’s deepest, most embarrassing secret to fully assimilate to Sayo. Perhaps two moments. But the intensity of the laughter that poured out was at least equal to the length of the pause, because it  _ completely _ drowned out Battler’s thoughts, spinning in circles as they tried and think of some justification as to why the form of Beatrice, beautiful, powerful, elegant, Beatrice, was based off the cover of  _ Busty Blonde Backdoor Babes.  _

Sayo was  _ rolling _ in laughter. “You never told me thaaaaaat!” 

“Because it was embarrassing!“

“Was it truly that baaaad?”

“Yes!” He pouted, gently pulling the cape around himself, hoping that maybe he could disappear and erase this conversation from his memory, just like other choice moments from his past, featuring  _ small bombs _ and _simultaneous clockwise murders_ _.  _ But the action just made the laughter louder, a rising chorus. 

“Then you deserve it! What kind of man tells the girl he loves that his ideal woman is a porn star?” 

“Ah, useless, useless, it’s all useless! You were my first real crush!!! What was I supposed to do?” The second half of the statement slipped from his lips before his mind had a chance to ponder the words, festering just for a moment in the air between the two of them before it had dissipated in the wind.

“Your first?” He came out a little from the cocoon he’d made from his cape to nod. “ _ Oh _ .”

“Yeah.” It was a dumb kid crush, one that he didn’t really realize was even a thing. He just thought Shannon was really cool, and wanted to spend time with her all the time, and maybe to hold hands with her, and he didn’t really even realize it was a thing, not until he caught himself wanting to trace her face with his fingers, to grow old with her like in those old storybooks. 

He wasn’t sure if the him that was a stupid twelve year old would still feel the same way he did now if he had all the same knowledge. From where he was, that version of himself, even the version of himself that walked onto the island what felt ages ago, they were almost different people. 

“Was that why you promised that? To take me off the island?”

“Uh, probably?” He awkwardly scratched at the back of his head as embarrassing, repressed memories of when he was a kid floated through his head. “I was dumb, and you were so cool, so I was probably thinking that you’d think I was really cool too, if I promised that.” 

There was a soft scoff from Sayo, but not the type meant to be mocking. No, it was the type of noise that tried to play off something, someone that had shaped your experiences to nothing more than a joke, even though that thing, that joke, had ripped open your heart and laid it exposed those many years ago. “Even as a child, you were ridiculous.”

“So were you! And, uh, I’m sorry. That I never got to do that.”

“Can you, at least, fulfill a single promise to me? Right now?” The words had a weight to them, one that was not heard but felt, pulling him in like gravity. 

“Anything.”

“Stay with me until the sun sets.” 

There are not many promises he could fulfill. But this one, this one he can manage, as he reached for Sayo’s hand, twining his fingers together around something that had long since ceased to be alive. 

It takes exactly one minute and five seconds for Battler to start crying after that. One minute and two seconds, if you were to count the ugly sob that started to form as a form of crying. 

It was silent, after that. Sayo’s hand was no longer warm, nor did it truly feel alive. But he still held it, even as tears and snot ran down his face, as the thing he was grasping got weaker and weaker until, finally, all he was clutching was air.

and thus it ended, with two old friends watching the sun set.


End file.
